War lines
by jaggedjacket
Summary: They waited in line to be treated for thier injuries, but they just couldn't keep thier eyes off of each other. She finds him, miraculously, and Kiba wonders if his wound wasn't more serious than he originally thought. Tenten x Kiba
1. Chapter 1

She remembered seeing Kiba during the war.

The air was warm and breezy that day, but promised cooler temperatures come sundown. The earth beneath them had been worn; fresh dirt paths had been carved out from underneath trafficking shinobi and with little rain lately, the clumps of dirt resembled bits of hay. He stood next to his sister in an aggregate of shinobi all suffering from minor injuries in a rather long line to a medic tent that ran a C curve around from one end of camp to the other. The shinobi she got in line behind was suffering from some serious looking burns to his torso and arms. She could see the parts of his shirt that had been melted into his dermis if she looked closely. She had been thankful the smell of her own blood covered any scent of charred flesh and she tried to keep her distance as she stood apart from him in line without being too obvious she was doing so.

Every ninja would have complained about the inability to heal each other or themselves, but then also knew that draining themselves and each other of chakra wasn't the best idea since they were going need their rest before getting clearance to head out again come morning. Injured shinobi were required to let the medics do their job so they could save any and all chakra reserves for recuperation. They had all been stretched thin, running double and triple shifts and exerting themselves beyond exhaustion. Everyone in line was covered in various degrees of mud, dust, blood and debris coupled with equal amounts of fatigue as the afternoon sun warmed their skin in a brief moment of rest.

Tenten shuffled in the gap of the line, trying not to stagger as she applied pressure to her head, steadily making her way to the front. She had no way of knowing how bad her head wound was, only that like all head injuries, it had bled profusely and that she couldn't just tape it up and pretend like she was fine while out trying to fight enemy nin.

They stood across each other in opposite ends of the line. She tried not to stare at him in her less than lucid state. She remembered thinking random things at first: that he looked good in the standard issue flack jacket, that he looked just as haggard and weary as the rest of the shinobi waiting to enter the worn medic tent, but mostly that he had stared just as hard back at her.

She probably should have moved to the front of the line, she noted, as more blood slowly began to seep and trailed down her cheek. But the way that the Inuzuka's dark brown eyes cut into her, like he was burrowing far beneath just a simple glance her way left her wanting to stay across from him in line and continue the strange connection. Was he always that tall? Since when had he filled out so much? He looked much bigger than Hana even though half of him was supporting her and she couldn't see him properly. Was he gawking at her head? Were her injuries really that bad?

He was most likely thinking she was crazy for not insisting that she get healed first. Most likely _tching_ in his head like Neji about the stubbornness of kunoichi. She initially thought he was only there to support his sister with his good arm, but the injury to Hana's femur seemed to be almost as severe as his left arm's injury. She hadn't noticed right away that he was injured under his pervading stare. It distracted and mesmerized her as his sharp eyes dashed between each of her individual's pupils with scrutiny. Like he was expecting something. Perhaps he was expecting her to pass out and was merely surprised it hadn't happened yet.

Determination, pure and simple was in his every movement, whether it be to keep his sister upright and quietly talking to him the whole time or to not show how much pain he was in, Tenten couldn't tell. She wished that she could hear what they were saying. Grunts and hisses of pain trying to be stoically stifled surrounded her in line, muffling out the sibling's private words. Hana kept her head low, holding her field-dressed thigh with a grimace and Kiba kept his lips tight with an ever exposed fang so that Tenten couldn't read either of their lips. They communicated with simple sentences and low whispers, the whole time Kiba's eyes raked across Tenten's, like he was searching for a serious answer to some unspoken question. She couldn't tell if they were talking about her, it didn't matter though. She held most of his attention, and she was somehow very pleased about it. It was a long shot to hope that this behavior was unique only unto her, but she pretended anyways, letting her head be filled with the fantasy that his brooding eyes sought out only her in this way. She could always blame her battered head for this kind of thought process later.

A sudden panic finally worked its way up through her and Tenten looked around for their nin-dogs, and was thankfully able to locate them from a sweeping glance. They lounged lazily underneath the shade of three tall pines, napping quietly as they waited for their masters. She supposed they were ordered to lie down while their masters where undergoing healing so as not to have unnecessary bodies in the tent while they were being healed. Tenten couldn't see any injuries on them as far as she could tell. She was relieved that they were fine.

Their eyes kept connecting. There were moments where they had to break contact when Tenten would have to shuffled a few steps ahead in line, and Kiba would have to help his sister to do the same. Then, like magnets, his dark, mysterious eyes would pierce right through her again, targeting her, pinning her down. She couldn't look away. His stance was casual and relaxed despite his injuries, not to mention the fact that he had to support his sister in the line as well. Tenten was probably hallucinating the regard for her he saw in his eyes, like his whole being was suddenly focused on her. He looked torn, like he wanted to leave his sisters side to come to hers but couldn't. The thought was crazy and she chalked it up again to the recent head trauma. He was to the front of the line now, ushering his sister into the tent with one last smoldering look of concern at her before he ducked under the faded awning.

It was good that he had gotten his sister into the tent, as she had started to go into shock from the sounds of the yelling and screaming going on soon after her arrival.

Tenten took it upon herself to black out then, letting the dizzy feeling from either his heady gaze or lack of blood to finally do her in.

(o)

A/N: I have no idea if I am going to continue this. You may want to alert it, in case I do. We'll see. This couple fascinates me. I think it needs more love.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Yikes. This got seriously long. I don't have plans for another chapter, and I promised that I would get another chapter of The Training Partner done…but that might have to wait until next month. My apologies to whomever I told it would be out before the end of the year. Vacation that wasn't really vacation over the holidays got in the way of that one. Whoops.

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He found refuge late one night, completely exhausted and bleeding from a gash on his tricep, in small cave on the side of a mountain. They were located a few miles west of where the edge of all the fighting was taking place, making it an ideal location to sleep off the night in his chakra deprived state. It took most of his strength to lift Akamaru and carry him vertical up the daunting cliffs, but he knew his best chance for survival would be to make it as far up as he could under the cover of night. His arm burned as he climbed, but his determination drove him to ignore it and continue on towards safety.

He made it past the point he considered safe from enemies, and proceeded to search for an open mouth of a cave. Shallow or deep it wouldn't matter, as long as the shelter would cover them from elements and be big enough to let them rest with minimal paranoia throughout the night.

It was then, when he noticed other chakra signatures, that he realized that his brilliant hiding spot was occupied by other fellow shinobi. Relieved that it was not enemy nin, he approached with caution, only to be met with a concerned face and an open invitation to sleep it off while others took watch. He counted at least five others in various states of chakra depravation and/or injured, all recuperating along the sides of the cave. Grateful for offer, Kiba nearly passed out on top of his dog when he placed him down on the cold floor.

A constant flow of nightmares remained his usual unwelcomed companion while he struggled to obtain any level of rest while he closed his eyes. Akamaru stayed his ever vigilant companion as they slept restlessly through the first few hours of the night. His arm both ached and itched as the blood started to crust and congeal to his skin and tattered shirt. Too tired to do anything about it, he tried to ignore it until he could better see it to assess the damage and repair it in the morning, but the pain of it constantly interrupted any descent sleep he might have gotten.

He kept himself vaguely aware of what was going on every time his arm tore him away from his much needed REM cycles. One of the shinobi guarded the door using a cloaking technique that hid everyone's chakra so they could remain undetected unless another familiar shinobi happened to approach. Three more had entered during the night, and the stench of blood pervaded the edges of the cave, blocking his nose from smelling much of anything else. So many were tired, injured and near death. Kiba wished somehow he could help, to heal, to comfort. His strength didn't even allow him to mumble a thanks to someone who had come by to heal the gash on the back of his arm. Chakra and energy sapped, he finally fell into a deep sleep, letting the rhythmic breathing of his nin-dog lull him into a steady slumber. It felt like the person who had healed him had also doped him without his consent into finally hitting the much needed sleep so hard. The months of war and little to no rest were finally catching up to him. There was no fighting his body's need to be off a steady stream of soldier pills and actually shut down. Strain and stress didn't even begin to cover the amount of exertion his body was undertaking. He felt his entire entity wrap around the warmth of rest like a cocoon, relieved that for once someone could watch his back for a change while he recuperated.

The bloodbath that was an uncontrolled world of chaos while he dreamt changed now in this sleep. No longer were monsters eating at him and his loved ones with jagged, sharp teeth. No longer was he so scared for his teammates that he was sure to be swallowed up in the panic of helplessness that coupled inevitable death. It morphed slowly as the fear that clutched his chest released. The colors faded from red and black and death and horror into lighter colors of blue and green and calm and light. The screaming eventually muted out as the pounding of his heart faded and no longer threatened to burst with in his chest. The trepidation of losing everything precious to him released like a balloon drifting upwards into the wind.

Sky. A warm breeze. His nin-dog. A field of tall grass and flowers. A heavenly smell tainted with the scent of blood that never really faded.

He focused on the smell that didn't make him want to cringe. It was warm and familiar and nice. It was the kind of smell that he could easily never get enough of. It crossed his mind that it could have been the flowers in the field. He had never seen these particular kind of flowers before. They were new to him, but the smell, the intoxicating aroma of all that was good to him,_ that_ he knew. It was more than familiar. It was the scent of someone special.

His stomach suddenly felt like it did when he jumped down from a great height, sliding up into his chest which pounded against his ribs as all the blood rushed to his head at the same time.

She was _here_.

With _him_.

He could smell _her_.

He turned his body, snapping his head in all directions, trying to get a visual on her whereabouts. He twisted his torso, his head, eyes searching the skyline, the mountains on the horizon, the edge of the tall grass where Akamaru chased a rabbit lightheartedly. He spun around again and again, searching everywhere for her, trying to catch her illusive fragrance on the wind. It tortured his senses, addled his brain, stung his nose and killed his better judgment. His sole purpose would be to find her now, no matter what. He couldn't live with himself if he lost her again. He kept up the dizzying circles while he scanned the hillsides, foot over foot, jerking his head back and forth for some small sign that she was there, that she wasn't a mirage, or a scent caught in his nose, in his brain, in his breath, in his flesh.

She was a part of him, and somehow he wasn't so sure that it wasn't a piece of himself that he was searching for, just a dream of a happy memory that haunted his brain, taunting him into believing there was something more. He twisted again, frantic and disoriented, slipping in his foothold to collide with solid earth below him as he searched for something that would only amount to a wraith slipping through his fingers once again.

He was falling now, and somehow he welcomed the familiar confusion of his body unrestricted by gravity. His freefall didn't let him escape the smell that plugged his nose. He embraced it now as the figment of his mind, his soul, consumed him. If this was death, he welcomed it. Her perfume was so strong and fierce he wished that death had come, as the only logical conclusion would be that he had reached heaven.

He awoke with a myoclonic start, jerking his limbs towards himself in a fetal position. His arms cupped around his dog and the person lying next to him and his dog protectively on instinct.

His brain suddenly caught up with what his body had already discovered. The warm person in his arms was not lying to him, and he half wondered in the darkness of the cave if she was the apparition from his dream about to disappear in his arms at any moment. The illusion in question shifted to him as an unmistakable groggy moan escaped her throat while she cleaved to him with abandon. His hands traced over her body as they trembled with doubt and exhilaration.

She was _alive_.

He didn't care how she had found him, because his task now, besides rejoicing that she wasn't dead like he feared, was to assess how badly she was injured, if at all. His shaky hands roamed hesitantly over the scar on her head that she recently received from the latest battle of war that had incapacitated her. He pressed his face to hers without shame, taking in the feel of her smooth face with the high part of his cheek that had least amount of stubble. His nose filtered through her hair letting the baby soft locks caress it as he indulged in the sweet smell of her shampoo. Somehow in his assessment of her, his hand found hers as his other gripped her closer. He was vaguely aware of their pressing palms, fingers interlaced in a silent and gentle awestruck embrace. A ragged breath escaped him in his realization that she had no critical injuries.

He wished he could see better with the small amount of light filtering in through the cave. Only his good eyesight would be able to make out the delineation between shapes, the outline of twin buns on her head. To everyone else it must seem like pitch black with so little light to see. It was a wonder she found him to begin with. He wasn't about to question the miracle, but he wasn't quite sure he was awake yet either.

She was the one that had healed his arm, of that he was now certain. No doubt she had drugged him, some kind of sleeping jutsu perhaps, because there was no way he would have missed staying awake with her had she not. As it was, the jutsu used to induce sleep should have lasted longer, and it was a testament to his stubbornness to be with her that granted him a precious few hours with her before sunlight broke over the mountain. The madness of war would start again come morning. They would separate and be deployed back to their squads rendezvous mark, never knowing if they were going to see each other again.

He wondered comically to himself if one could be in a relationship so deep and have no conversation about it pass between them. The nature of their relationship seemed beyond language, a deep current of emotion and action and glances that didn't need the worthless exchange of meaningless words. Every touch spoke volumes to him. Every time she used her eyes to speak he sat a captive audience to her silent commands. They moved as one will, gravitating towards each other like polarized magnets, unable to go against the natural rushing force until they found each other.

And she did find him.

He could have cried with happiness.

His fingers traced her jaw line, weaving around the rings of her long neck to the hollow of her throat. His palms slipped over the fabric of her shirt around the ball of her shoulder to the slender muscular arms beneath. He breathed again. She felt real and he couldn't help but press her body against his in case the illusion of her presence were to slip back into another ethereal manifestation. He waited for the violent visceral feelings of bereavement to follow her inevitable disappearance. His soul would ache again until she returned to him. And he begged every god vehemently that this was not a gracious farewell designed by the gods in his sleep to give him some sort of closure.

That would be most cruel.

Against every odd she was here. When he had left her in the infirmary…

He shuddered to think about what had happened only a fortnight ago.

As he stood in the line to the medic tent with his sister, there she suddenly appeared. Part of him felt relief over the fact that she wasn't dead already. But her injuries were critical and head wounds were not to be taken lightly. The thin gauze that swathed her head was done with haste, and not by anyone who had the time to wrap it properly. His sister needed his body for support, and his own limp and completely useless arm was not helping anyone in their situation. He was focused on his sister, keeping her taking and conscious while they waited. No one around him had minor injuries. The poor soldier in front of Tenten looked half burned to death with some version of katon. He was silently grateful he wasn't as close to the smell of singed flesh as she was. He noticed that she remained as distant from him as possible without trying to seem rude. That would have made him laugh sardonically had the situation not been as dire.

Tenten hemorrhaged from her parietal lobe, lucky to be standing at all. If he were able to move at all, he would have been by her side, compressing the cut to suppress the bleeding if he weren't stymied with his own wound while his sister was on the cusp of possibly dying from poison and shock. If he rushed to the front of the tent all hell would have broken loose and the ER line would have gone into panic-zombie mode and bull rushed towards the front of the tent causing mass mayhem and chaos. Why did she look so nonchalant? Did she not realize how bad her condition and the condition of everyone around her had turned? These were not minor injuries that everyone around them was suffering from; he had the impression that she thought she entered the minor injury medic line, but he wasn't going to contradict her for fear she leave and think her wounds not as critical as they were. He also didn't risk talking to her and interrupt the flow of words between him and his sister that kept her from giving into the pain and the poison threatening to take her life.

That didn't prevent him from not letting her out of his sight. Hana recalled the story of how Iruka visited the Inuzuka complex for the first time while Kiba's eyes remained glued to Tenten's. He had never felt so caught between a Scylla and Charybdis before that moment.

The subsequent days that followed were pure torture.

She hadn't even broken her fever before he was deployed back to the front lines again. The time he spent in recuperation was between his sister's bedside and hers, quite literally. It only took one plea to the medic attending them to position their beds beside his. He had a feeling that the medic had lost someone precious to her as well and felt sorry for him. He watched over them both between bouts of unrestfull sleep, mostly worrying that either of them was going to die at any moment. Between the etiolating poison that virulently attacked Hana's immune system and Tenten's incapacitating concussion, Kiba was an absolute wreck at every moment.

There were times when Tenten seemed lucid and her eyes fluttered open. He would hold a cup of water under her lips to sip, hoping that the small amount of fluid would help hydrate the kunoichi during the bouts of her febrific state.

He would stare at her, her body lying helpless on the hospital cot. He didn't say anything while her eyes continued their evaluation of him, perhaps questioning his motives or wondering why she was in the infirmary tent to begin with. The aphonic messages weren't questioned by Kiba. He delivered his reassurance with sober eyes that he wasn't leaving her side until absolutely necessary. Her brow was still beaded over with sweat when he received his medical clearance and orders to leave come morning light.

He slept in her cot that night, holding her without reserve. His whole body begged him not to go, not to leave, not to release her tiny frame from his when dawn arrived. He could see in it in her eyes as he edged himself away from her, how very worried she was for his safety. Her anxious tawny eyes kept searching his, desperately pleading with him not to go, begging him to stay. Her hands grasped his, squeezing and pulling with what little strength she possessed, pleading with him to remain with her a little longer. He kissed her hands, her forehead, nuzzled her like the gentle animal he was until he almost fell over from the overwhelming intoxicating scent and touch of her. He promised with fierce eyes that he would see her again, and he squeezed his hands firmly against hers before letting her go. He watched her lay lifeless on the cot, small and cold despite her fever, and he knew that she questioned whether or not she would see him again.

No words had been spoken the entire time. He didn't waste his breath with a fumbling tongue that would only serve to dilute himself that things would turn out like a fairy tale. He couldn't bring himself to be daft enough to say that the war was ending soon and they could all go home and miraculously all of their family and friends had survived unscathed.

How could he?

He thanked the gods that she was still breathing, that they were together for one day, one hour, one moment more than he thought he would ever be worthy to receive. He gratefully drank up the time he had with her, with his sister, as he knew it would most likely be his last.

He wouldn't forget her though. The first time he saw and heard her laugh. The way she smiled at him before Akamaru attacked her with licks when they waited outside the Hyuga residence before training. Even if it was only a friendly acquaintance, the time they spent as friends and with friends he would treasure always. Somewhere along the lines of their casual meetings his heart got stolen by a seemingly unassuming kunoichi with deadly aim.

Then the war started and everything when to hell.

Now, here he was in heaven, drinking in the scent of ambrosia and the warmth of his Weapon's Goddess.

Perhaps, he thought as he held her closer to him_, _he had died after all.


End file.
